


Dear Auntie Agnes,

by floralathena



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Introspection, M/M, POV Remus Lupin, Pre-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-02 05:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15789801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralathena/pseuds/floralathena
Summary: Remus Lupin has one more week before he will finally be a Hogwarts professor. He should be happy.Remus Lupin writes part-time for Witch Weekly and gets a little extra income. He should be happy.The man who betrayed and murdered his best friends has escaped from prison. He should be distraught.Remus was never one for doing what he should.





	1. The One Where Remus Writes For Witch Weekly

Remus Lupin has wanted this job for as long as he can remember, and he’ll be damned if he does anything less than excellent work.

Yes, he would be ecstatic about any full-time employment in the wizarding world, especially one with a nice enough salary to enable him to buy name-brand snacks, but this job is something he’d never dared to hope for, a secret dream come reality.

Once Dumbledore hired him, he began reading the latest DADA material in his every spare moment (of which he had many, now that a salary was in his future). He spent an entire day going from Muggle thrift shop to Muggle thrift shop looking for suitable professional wear (and then spent the entire next day charming it to fit and hold together as nicely as possible). He owled every Head of House for a list of their students and asked if any of them require special attention or accommodations (he even owled Snape, the greasy tool, though he hasn’t yet received a response and doesn’t expect to).

Now, he’s studying the lists and praying that he’s retained his uncanny cramming ability from his Hogwarts days. Charmed flashcards challenge him: Seamus Finnegan?

“Gryffindor, third year, proclivity for combustive magic,” Remus says, and the text on the card turns green as the card flies itself into his “mastered” pile.

Mathilda Garrick?

“Ravenclaw, second year, almost bright enough to counteract her severe anger issues.”

Luna Lovegood?

“Second year, Ravenclaw, and… unique,” Remus says, because Flitwick wrote Luna her own paragraph and Remus’s flashcard charm is really only meant for a sentence or two at a time. He’s actually very excited to teach the second year Ravenclaws because of her, as Flitwick mentioned that while she seems wholly disinterested in defensive magic, she’s been bullied by other students and is remarkably bright. Hopefully, he’ll be able to interest her in a defensive spell or two- if she’s going to be an odd duck in the wizarding world, she ought to learn to protect herself. Maybe she’ll like _Waddiwasi_ or the Bat-Bogey Hex? He probably shouldn’t be teaching second years any hexes, but he doubts Dumbledore will mind.

George Weasley?

“Gryffindor, fifth year, notorious prankster and twin to Fred Weasley.”

Cedric Diggory?

“Hufflepuff, fifth year, very popular with the young ladies,” Remus says, smiling at the fact that Professor Sprout had felt that information was somehow crucial to Remus’s lesson plans for the year.

Godwin Kirby?

“Rave-”

Remus’s alarm begins to scream at him (figuratively- he does most of his shopping in Muggle thrift shops nowadays) and the text on the flashcard turns red, flying itself into his “revise” pile.

“Damn,” he mutters, scrambling to reach the alarm and stop its blaring without upending the coffee table and splashing his coffee on the carpet. If he saw Remus drinking coffee rather than tea, Sirius would- Remus forces the thought from his mind and punches the OFF button.

He’ll be subletting the small flat once he leaves for Hogwarts as he has the rotten luck of a lease that lasts until January. Ideally, Remus won’t leave even the slightest issue for the tenant to contact him about. The alarm, one of three he has in the house, is his reminder to start on editing the articles he’s been owled from _Witch Weekly_ . He only works for them occasionally, when their in-house writing and editing staff is overloaded, and this month he’s been told by the editor-in-chief (a Gryffindor in his year who thankfully enjoyed and admired the Marauders’ notoriety) that two witches are on maternity leave and another is in St. Mungo’s for an indefinite period of time, so he’s been sent an article on new magical contraceptives, an interview with controversial romance author Catherine Ashley, and a questionable seven-page guide to incorporating modern Muggle fashion into daily Wizarding wear. The witch in the hospital also happens to be the author of _Advice from Auntie Agnes_ , the weekly column helping witches with everything from unhappy marriages to unexpected children.

He grabs the stack of papers and brings them over to his lumpy sofa.

Remus doesn’t know why on Earth the role of Auntie Agnes went to him rather than to one of the witches on the permanent staff. He suspects that it is some kind of revenge on the editor-in-chief’s part for a prank that he no longer remembers.

_Ms. Beatrix Harlow,_

_If I or one of my late brothers have done anything to offend you, I apologize wholeheartedly and thank you for the honest work you’ve given me. Please, spare me from the horrors of the advice column._

_Yours truly,_

_Remus J. Lupin_

Disappointingly, the role was given to him far too close to publication time for Remus to feel comfortable begging off and leaving someone else in the lurch, so here he is holding five letters from witches in need of assistance. He is supposed to compose replies to three of the five letters and send them back for Beatrix to choose between; Remus supposes it is rather charitable of her to give him any choice in the matter at all.

_Dear Auntie Agnes,_

_My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly three years now, and I’ve been dropping hints like crazy, but still no sign of a proposal!_

Oh, no. Please, dear Merlin, don’t let them all be about romance. Remus tosses this one aside.

_Dear Auntie Agnes,_

_This may sound odd or unbelievable, but my four-year-old daughter has spent the past month constantly masturbating in public by rubbing herself against chairs, tables, and even our staircase! In addition to this embarrassing act, her accidental magic has been tearing the house apart._

So. Romance isn’t looking so bad anymore. Remus does not feel qualified to help with this issue but feels mildly obligated to do so due to the sense of panic he feels emanating from the paper. Blinking, he sets this in a pile to be read in its entirety later if the other letters don’t strike his fancy.

_Dear Auntie Agnes,_

_For nine years, I was married to the most wonderful wizard in the world, an Auror I loved with all my heart. Two years ago, he was cursed on the job and spent three agonizing months in St. Mungo’s before passing. Recently, my family has been asking when I will start looking for another man. My family is pureblood and my husband was a muggleborn, and they never liked him or treated him like they should have, like family. I am not ready to “look for another man,” nor do I believe I ever will be. If I do ever feel up to dating again, I will certainly not go along with my family’s attempts to set me up with a “respectable” pureblood wizard. How can I communicate to them that I’m not ready and may never be?_

_Sincerely, Mourning Widow_

This- this, Remus can work with. He might work angrily and have to edit out a few insults to the widow’s family, but he can work with it. He places this letter next to the toddler masturbation letter and continues.

He eventually chooses to answer the letters from the panicked mother, the widow, and a young girl out on her own after leaving Hogwarts wondering if she’s obligated to keep in contact with her abusive parents. He gets them all done just as his second alarm goes off and he has to head to work.

Stocking shelves and mopping floors at Tesco is just as mind-numbing as ever until Remus remembers that he’ll be quitting at the end of this shift, and his mind is filled with visions of telling his manager where he can stick that damned extra-long feather duster of his and smashing the wine display so it spills all over the floor. But the tops of the shelves can actually get a bit gross and poor Val who’s five months pregnant would have to clean it all up, so instead he resolves to at least make a rude gesture in the store’s direction when he leaves, and maybe charm the automatic doors to open and close at random for a couple weeks, just so that James and Peter don’t revoke his Marauder membership from the afterlife.

Quitting is fairly painless. He tells his manager that he’s got some teaching work and is congratulated; he agrees to come back and pick up his last paycheck in a week, the day before he’ll set out from King’s Cross. Val gives him a slightly awkward hug and leaving for what is almost the last time feels no different than leaving has felt every other time he’s clocked out. Riding the bus home feels a bit exciting, and when he arrives at his flat he glances around, pulls out his wand, and unlocks the front door with _Alohomora_ instead of using his key, just because he can. He smiles for Lily, tireless advocate of using magic for silly little things every now and then, just because you can. The others, all pureblood, never quite understood it, how unlocking a door or turning on a light could be exciting.

Lily knew that magic is just as fun as it is terrifying. She and Remus had a shared belief that a lot of purebloods would be much happier, more well-adjusted people had they grown up without magic or at least in the company of muggles. Remus still holds this belief, though it smacks of irony now for reasons he can’t attempt to put to words without dissolving into tears.

He collapses into bed for a glorious five hours of sleep. The third alarm, the small pink analogue clock that he got for £2 at a charity shop, _BRIIIIIIINGs_ until he switches it off and begins to trudge towards the shower. The water is cold and probably a bit off due to the old rusted pipes, but his mother had always been insistent that magic could never replace a proper wash and Remus can’t imagine going without. Breakfast is two slices of buttered toast and a slightly mushy banana eaten hurriedly as Remus packs his edited work for _Witch Weekly_ into his briefcase. He still kind of hates everything he wrote and hopes to edit it a bit today before he has to send it all back at six.

The bus is running late. He considers just Apparating into the alley behind the library, but a few of the local homeless population like to camp there waiting for the library to open, and Remus generally would rather not Obliviate any innocent people if it can be avoided. Just as he resigns himself to apparating into the toilets and pretending to have simply rushed off as soon as he arrived, he hears the telltale screech-and-squeal of a bus climbing its way up his steep road.

“Oh, thank goodness,” he whispers to himself, disappointed. Climbing aboard the bus feels a bit like climbing into a used casket, but Remus is used to secondhand goods and no longer minds. He uses the twelve minutes aboard to read over his reply to the abused girl.

_Dear Wondering,_

_First and foremost you must do what is best for yourself and your health. As a young witch on her own for the first time, continuing to interact with your parents may cause you distress which could then hinder you as you make your way in the world. Perhaps in a few years, you will be in a position to allow your parents back into your life, but you certainly do not owe them anything. They fed and clothed you, yes, but this does not mean that they were “actually not all that bad.” In fact, they did not even do the bare minimum that is expected of a parent- provide for your mental and emotional wellbeing. These things are just as important as your physical health. Do not contact them out of any sense of obligation, because you have none to them._

_Your only obligation is to yourself and to your future family (whether that family is a husband and children or a close group of friends). Give yourself a future as wonderful as your past should have been. I am not advising you to try and forget your past or to view it through rose-colored glasses. Do not allow yourself to forget what you have suffered. Things should have been different, but you can still use the sorry hand you were dealt to be a better person and help others like you in the future. Go on and be incredible, and do not allow your past demons to hinder you._

_Sincerely, Auntie Agnes_

It’s a bit too cheesy and a lot too preachy for his taste, meaning that it should be perfect for publication. He now has… about ten minutes left on the ride.

“Shit,” he mutters. Is it not long enough? Or is it too long? Each reply he wrote is in the realm of two or three paragraphs in length. He can’t remember how long they typically are; admittedly, he doesn’t pay much attention to the material in Witch Weekly unless he’s directly responsible for its editing. The bus driver, a woman with smiling eyes which droop more and more each day, has evidently decided that none of her passengers will take issue with her music today, and the local variety station is playing rather loudly. Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” is playing. Remus distracts himself from how apropos it is by wondering when and where he managed to learn every single word.

“They let you dream just to watch them shatter,” he quietly sings along, ruining Dolly’s clear voice with his own gravelly baritone.

Perhaps in another world he would bust out his long-neglected falsetto, once said to rival the bubbliest Hufflepuff choir girl, but in this world he is a ragged ghost of a man on a shambling bus full of similarly grey strangers, none of whom seem as though they might appreciate an impromptu drag performance. Remus hasn’t properly sung in over a decade, and vocal cords, like all muscles, atrophy in their disuse. Many parts of him have fallen into disuse over the past decade, parts which he likes to pretend have disappeared as if they do not scream at him in pain every waking moment, begging for some action.

Recently, he’s allowed the enthusiasm for education to return. This sensation which James, Peter, and… just about everyone but Lily had been convinced would wear away within a couple of years at Hogwarts had only grown along with Remus. Education is a particular type of magic, magic which is only perceptible to those who have been denied it, or understand what it is to live without it. He aims to help his students see just a bit of this magic. If they’re able to see just that tiny glimpse, their curiosity will drive them to peel back the curtain of obfuscation (and every other barrier in their way) on their own long after Remus has ceased instruction.

Eight minutes left. Dolly has gone, and Remus has no idea what is playing now- something with a guitar that begs him to close his eyes and sway. Remus cannot afford to close his eyes. Genuinely, if he closes his eyes for longer than a few seconds, he will fall asleep, miss his stop, miss work, and lose his job sooner than planned. More importantly, he’ll lose his final paycheck. Instead, he listens for the key, then the time signature, and then for the rhyme scheme. He notices an odd (slant, he thinks it's called) rhyme, “leg” and “lag,” which only an American could really get away with. Remus considers that maybe anyone willing to sufficiently bastardize their vowel sounds could pull it off, but he is not willing to make such concessions and marks it down as a refusal on behalf of the UK, each and every ridiculously specific accent categorization in Britain be damned.

Seven minutes. Maybe falling asleep on the bus wouldn’t be too bad. He could easily survive without his last paycheck for the week before he heads to Hogwarts. Rent is paid, and he has half a loaf of bread, a jar of marmalade, some instant noodles, and two bananas left. Honestly, the library doesn’t pay very well and he could almost certainly find more beneficial employment. Working at the library does, however, save him from the medical costs which might result from him banging his head on the walls of whatever fluorescently lit establishment may deign to hire a man with shoddily forged evidence of education, an alarming amount of scars, and who requires at least three specific days off each month.

Shelving books, odd as it may sound, sustains him. Like… oatmeal. Not as exciting as omelettes or corn muffins, but an important staple of the breakfast table nonetheless.

Six minutes. Remus rereads all three of his responses, probably muttering to himself and looking the maniac. The bus jolts and it takes Remus a bit to refocus his eyes, reminding him that he needs to get some reading glasses.

Three minutes.

“Loony, loopy Lupin,” he sings softly.

He is certain that Peeves torments poor Luna Lovegood with a similarly unoriginal play on words. Hogwarts, for better and for worse, never really changes. Remus attempts to look morosely out the window and succeeds only in appraising his own reflection in the grimy glass.

He needs a haircut, he supposes, although nothing could really save it now. Thirty-three and going grey. His hair is thinning, though the hairline is not receding. He thanks God and Merlin for small mercies. Remus had never been blessed with the luxury of vanity; his hair, thick and shiny in his youth, had been his sole comfort in the mirror. It could be considered dignified, the silver, were Remus himself the sort of man one might consider dignified.

The jumper he’s wearing was probably scratchy once upon a time, but it was already well-loved when he acquired it and Remus refuses to skimp on fabric softener. Its pattern is gloriously abhorrent, all bright oranges and greens and reds spattered over one another in various geometric shapes. Werewolves are supposed to run hot, but Remus has always felt cold leeching at his frayed edges.

That, and there’s hardly a clear inch of skin on his body.

If it’s not scar tissue, it’s full of ink. Hell, half of the scar tissue is full of ink too. He takes out his earring and he could use magic to cover the tattoos, but he’s no Metamorphmagus, and a single slip-up would be disastrous. So he sticks to more simple solutions.

One more stoplight.

Quitting his job at the library did hurt. Peter would’ve told him not to even bother quitting, to just not come back and spare himself the awkwardness, but Remus couldn’t bring himself to do that to the sweet old librarians who employ him.  He’ll be showing the new hire how to shelve properly today, and then he’ll say his goodbyes.

Remus does not enjoy saying goodbye.

 

-

 

Six full days with which to do as he wishes.

It’s a wholly unfamiliar treat, much like German chocolate cake. The first bite is delicious; the second is wonderful; the third is just fine; the fourth makes you reconsider the size of your slice; the fifth is just an overly decadent chore. Remus supposes that if he had grown up having German chocolate birthday cakes he would be used to the richness, but Hope and Lyall Lupin had been firm believers in birthday _pie_ for some godforsaken reason, and so Remus doesn’t quite know what to do with cake. Still, he does need to pack his things and send them on to Hogwarts, but that’ll just take an afternoon at most. He doesn’t have much. What little furniture he has will be staying here, as Minerva assured him that his quarters will be completely furnished. All he needs to bring is clothing, a lesson plan, and his wand.

Remus is fairly certain that he’ll be the only Hogwarts professor teaching in Muggle clothing most of the time, but it can’t be helped. Robes are just more expensive than they have any right to be, and the tendency of wizards to charm old things to seem new until they’re absolutely useless means that secondhand shops aren’t very common. Remus has one decent set of robes that might be said to fit if he charms them, and one tattered old cloak that hasn’t seen the light of day in years and may, for all Remus knows, already be demolished by moths. Wolfsbane is the second-greatest blessing he’s been granted in all his life, but once he exchanges his Muggle money for wizarding coin (which nets him much less buying power than Muggle money, not because of any true value but because wizards are a bigoted lot largely devoid of economic sense) all of his money from the library and then some goes towards Wolfsbane.

Used to go towards Wolfsbane. Dumbledore has arranged for Snape to brew it as a part of his duties as Potions master, and Remus is only slightly afraid of being poisoned or sabotaged. Snape never did have the guts to go all-in on anything besides his entirely unjustified superiority complex. Well, that and attempting to out Remus to the entirety of Hogwarts. Thinking of all of his worst memories, Snape played a role in many, his appearances outpaced only by Sirius Black.

Remus isn’t sure if the fact that Sirius was a part of all his greatest memories as well makes it better or worse. He leans towards worse. The fact that Sirius would enjoy knowing that he beat Snape in this, too, is definitely painful. Every thought involving Sirius is painful, which means that every thought about his past, about his greatest friends, about his first love, about his education, about growing up, makes something deep within his chest ache and something else behind his eyes grow and press into everything uncomfortably. The two memories which were once his worst are now a kind of sick assurance that Sirius was and is capable of magnificent cruelty, and he forces himself to replay them whenever he questions.

Remus is much more well-adjusted than he has any right to be, in his own opinion. Going back to Hogwarts could threaten that, seeing as he’s already plunged back into the lines of thought that he attempted to put to rest nearly a decade ago, but going back to Hogwarts is also his only chance to possibly have a life, and he isn’t going to fuck it up. He had a life once, six, actually, and they all ended quickly after his time at Hogwarts.

All save for one. Remus still hasn’t decided how to approach Harry. Does he know who Remus was to his parents? Does he have any idea that he once clumsily referred to Remus as Uncle Moony, that Remus used to read him bedtime stories back before he could form a single word, that they should be family? Does he hate Remus for failing to contact him all these years?

Remus hates Remus for failing to contact Harry. He tells himself that he couldn’t do anything. Werewolves can’t have custody of non-biological children, and Petunia Evans would never let Remus near any child of hers. Still, Remus could have done more. He’d thought of it many times before, of moving nearby and trying to find employment at Harry’s school as a custodian to keep an eye on him, or of pleading with Petunia for informal visitation, but Remus always was and always will be a coward at heart. And what happens when Harry realizes who and what he is? Not a werewolf, though that’s more than enough to justify his running the other way. What happens when he recognizes Remus as the man who could have saved his parents? Remus hates never seeing Harry, but he couldn’t bear losing him again. Harry already has two dead parents- he doesn’t need another dead man trying to fill their space.

He’ll be honest with Harry. Teach him as well as he can, because Remus refuses to stand by and watch again as innocents die. Tell him anything he wants to know about his parents, because Petunia refused to truly know her own sister when Lily turned out to be different. Take every shred of life Remus has left and give it to Harry, because Remus borrowed them quite a while back and repayment is long overdue.

In the meantime, he needs to make a copy of all of his lesson plans to send on to Dumbledore so he can make arrangements for the creatures and materials required. While he’s at it, he’ll make copies of his work for Witch Weekly, the letters and the editing, to keep for himself. He likes having a record of the work he’s done, however vapid or short the piece is. It’s nice to think that when he’s gone, there’ll be a little filing box to remember his passions when nobody else does. Some young witch or wizard or Squib or Muggle might find it and read it all and wonder who he was, or just rifle through the box before throwing it all away, or it all might burn down in the next Great Fire of London. Objects generally outlive their owners, even if they don’t live much longer.

Fuck, Remus used to be so fun. When did a morbid nonagenarian wrestle the wheel from him, boot him out of his own car, and start driving 40 in a 60 mph zone? It’ll all be alright, though, once he’s back at Hogwarts. He just has to survive a week of his own thoughts.

They’re just one more thing he can’t control.


	2. Barnum Effect

“I might have killed you in your sleep,” Remus says.

He hopes that his tone implies willingness to do so.

“You might’ve. I decided that I could live with that,” Sirius replies. The air inside the Shrieking Shack is heavy with blood and suffering. “You know what I mean,” Sirius defends, clearly taking Remus’s silence as a judgment of his phrasing (which, to be fair, Remus did certainly notice and disapprove of while still reveling in its impropriety).

“I do,” Remus responds honestly.

“You trust me,” Sirius claims.

“Incorrect.”

“You really still think that I-”

“No,” Remus patiently says, “but trusting the truth of your intentions and your actions is not the same as trusting you.”

Sirius furrows his brow and scowls.

Remus considers that he hasn’t had much of anything in the way of human interaction in the past decade or so, and Sirius is no better off.

“I mean… It’s been a long time, and it’s not as if James and Lily are the only things between us. Peter would never have succeeded if we had trusted each other. He couldn’t have convinced you to keep me in the dark about the Keeper switch, he couldn’t have known that I wouldn’t proclaim your innocence, he couldn’t have gotten away with it all if we’d had faith. Yes, I was gone a lot, and I should have said to hell with Dumbledore and the Order and told you about the missions, but I knew that you might do something to compromise me. You should have known that it was Order business, Sirius, how could you ever think that I would have turned?  What the hell motivation would I have to betray my family? You knew me, every damn part of me, and still, you thought that I was hiding something. And all I needed to do was have a decent bit of faith in you! We just had to trust, Sirius, and we could never do that, not even when James and Lily were alive, we could never just _trust-_ ”

“You’re mooning,” Sirius mumbles, and Remus finds his mouth moving for a moment with no participation from his vocal chords. Mooning is a “proper” word, of course, but it means- it meant- a lot of things to their merry band. It could mean attempting to show off knowledge in a subtle way, or masterminding a plan in which you’ll never be implicated, or blatantly pandering to somebody you don’t actually care for. In this case, it means going in circles and circles around something painful without any meaningful thought progression.

Sirius is staring.

“I’m still right,” Remus manages.

“I know,” Sirius says, “You always did have a certain proclivity.”

Remus can’t breathe as Sirius blatantly stares at his lips.

“A certain proclivity?” Remus whispers.

“For being right.”

He takes one step towards Remus. Two steps. Three, and their noses are brushing, and Sirius is now staring him right in the eye.

Matching his gaze is easy; in fact, it feels more natural than anything Remus has ever experienced. His eyes shine silver in the moonlight. Remus is drawn inexplicably forward, terrified and completely at ease as their lips meet. Indulging, he brings his hands up to card through soft hair, tangled because Sirius never bothered to buy his own hairbrush and has always relied on borrowing from others. Warm lips brush across his own, imploring and unbearably solid. Sirius grasps his hips desperately. Feeling as though the air has been drawn from his lungs, Remus draws back, gasping. Sirius spins him around so they’re looking out the same window. Sirius holds him closely, passionate yet oddly chaste, his arms around Remus’s waist as he sways slightly. The moon is beautiful, shining, and full, and Remus’s heart drops through the floor.

Sirius’s lips brush the back of his neck. They burn like silver.

“Peter…” Remus murmurs, trying to remember why he had said that name. Sirius begins to hum something unrecognizable. Remus gets lost in the song, and suddenly he can hear it performed by a full band, loud and distraught and defiant. Something is on the tip of his tongue. A guitar electrifies his veins and drums alter the rhythm of his heartbeat. Bagpipes are probably playing. A dissonantly jaunty tune is being plucked out on a piano. Sirius hums through it all like he can’t hear it, nearly silent yet just as distinguished as any instrument in the cacophony. Swaying, bathed in moonlight, the clashing noises are comforting to Remus, drowning all thoughts and feelings in their obtrusion. All he sees is light, though it’s dark out. All he hears is Sirius, though the music has never been louder. All he feels is warmth, intoxicating and enveloping.

Remus opens his eyes.

His patchwork quilt, warm and cozy when he first fell asleep, is now stifling and he shoves it off of the bed in a fit of frantic kicking. The digital clock to his left claims that it is 1:00 PM. Beatrix is probably reading over his submissions right now. Remus stumbles out of bed, tripping over his favorite atrocious acid-wash jeans in the dim light of a curtain-shrouded room and barely managing to catch himself on a rickety dresser. Yellowed linoleum tiles greet his feet with pleasant coolness as he makes his way into the kitchen. He throws open every cabinet until he finds the one he’s looking for.

Four more days. The lighter needs three flicks to work. Remus sees his hands shaking as he lights the cigarette. Taking a deep drag, he imagines that his heartbeat has slowed. At the back of the cabinet, Remus spots a bottle, and immediately drags it out to twist off the cap. He takes a swig of Everclear, which James used to affectionately call “wolf fuel” and which Remus figures the world is better off without.

Retching over the sink, Remus tries to remember the last time he dreamt like that.

Four more days.

He walks to the nearest window and has a brief battle with its hinge before he is able to force it open and stick his hand out. Flicking ashes into the breeze, Remus heaves a sigh and presses his forehead down into the whitewashed windowsill. He has to bend nearly in half, and he can feel his shirt and pants hover more than a few centimeters too high as he does so. Wind ruffles through his hair, which he should have washed three days ago. He lifts his head only long enough to take another deep drag. Remus holds it for as long as he can, blowing out into the beech outside the window only when his lungs scream. Pressing his forehead back into the windowsill, Remus can feel a nail’s head pressing into his skin. It hurts. He doesn’t move until he needs another drag. This time, when he comes up for smoke, the bottle of Everclear on a yellowed countertop lingers in his peripheral vision. It invades his mind without his consent; the memory of clinging to Sirius with one hand and an illegal Portkey with the other, heart racing, certain that there was no greater feeling in the world, Wizarding or otherwise. He’d enchanted a Muggle porn rag to take them into some tiny town in Kentucky that Remus saw in a documentary about mining strikes. It was very illegal, very dangerous, and very, very stupid. James had elected to stay in the country with his girlfriend, and Peter understandably had avoided being alone with just Remus and Sirius ever since fifth year. That weekend had been the start and the end. Sirius and Remus became a unit, as did James and Lily, and poor Peter began to draw back, put off by the insufferable pressure of hanging out with two pairs of soulmates- or, one pair of soulmates, one conniving turncoat, and a fool. Remus had known that the act of creating an illicit Portkey, let alone a trans-continental Portkey, could incur time in Azkaban, but he was young, in love, and invincible.

He is, at least, still technically young. Anyone drinking a sixteen-year-old bottle of pure ethanol must be either young, stupid, or both, and Remus will gladly accept both labels as long as they allow him to rationalize his behavior. He stands and alternates deep breaths of smoke with large swallows of alcohol until the cigarette burns down to the filter and his head starts swimming. Sometimes, he thinks that the worst part of lycanthropy is having an animal inside of him and knowing that he might lose control, knowing that he could kill or curse an innocent. Sometimes, he thinks that the worst part of lycanthropy is facing the discrimination of the Wizarding world. Sometimes, he is wrong. The objective worst part of lycanthropy is his ridiculously high tolerance. The bottle is halfway gone, and he can still remember the dream.

An issue which must be swiftly remedied. Ignoring his burning throat and seething mouth, Remus chugs the rest of the bottle, tossing it across the room and into the bin, pressing his forehead back into the windowsill. He would have those dreams all the time back at Hogwarts- innocuous everyday scenes, most of the time, things so mundane and unimportant that Remus would regard them as his own lack of imagination until he found himself experiencing extreme deja vu while reading in the common room or planning a prank days, weeks, even months later. This dream, though, has to be a figment of his imagination. Wishful thinking had afflicted him for a few months just after it all happened, but Remus had banished that unfortunate byproduct of knowing that magic exists to hell long ago. If only it hadn’t come crawling into his subconscious once more. Remus may be stupid and technically young, but he knows better than to assume anything. Seeing the future a million times does not guarantee seeing it again.

Divination is bullshit until it isn’t.

The room is swimming. Remus feels better until he doesn’t. Floating through his mind is a vague memory- that summer between sixth and seventh year when he’d channeled all of his fears and anxieties into attempting to learn all that he could. He used to have a ridiculous notion that if he just learned enough, just thought hard enough, he could figure out a way to stop the war bearing down on them. It wasn’t logical by any stretch of the imagination, but it kept him somewhat sane. He’d read every textbook and history he could get his hands on- Muggle, Wizarding, psychology, sociology, battle strategy, politics, early civilization, World War II. Anything that let him feign understanding, play at competence, he devoured with an all-consuming fervency. Some book or journal had detailed differing psychological opinions on the significance of dreams. Some psychologists, those who followed in the phallic footsteps of Freud, claimed that dreams have very specific, detailed meanings, and may be dissected to reveal the inner workings of an individual’s unconscious mind. Others asserted that dreams mean nothing, and are simply a byproduct of the brain’s natural information organization processes which occur during sleep. Remus liked the third option, which the book had barely explored: that dreams cannot be dissected and every symbol discerned because sometimes a spade is just a spade, but they are still oftentimes manifestations of waking anxieties. Dreams may be a sort of defense mechanism serving the purpose of exploring fears and desires in a safe manner, so that an individual may move on from them once awake. The “defense mechanism” aspect is unfortunately somewhat Freudian. What a fucking travesty.

“Such is the price any soul interested in psychology must pay,” Remus laments.

Fuck, he always used to go on about Freud when he got drunk. At least the alcohol is working. He can’t remember why he started thinking about the asshole to begin with. He does remember that he’s got a bottle of cheap wine in the back of his refrigerator.

It calls his name until he downs it all, and he swears he can still hear it as he crashes back into bed.

 

-

 

He dreams about Sirius. It’s so much better and so much worse, because these dreams, of bodies as warm and soft as their dormitory beds, feel too real. These are not prophetic. They are torturous, and he doesn’t understand. Finally, he is building a real, respectable life, and his mind has apparently decided that this means it must no longer hold back his demons. The figures in his dream are not men. They’re nothing but dreamscape Lost Boys, desperately clinging to one another because they’ve got nothing else to hold on to.

Waking up is excruciating. Sheets twist between and around his legs, damp with sweat and shame. He isn’t sure if he has four or three days left, and he can’t remember if he was counting the current day or not. It doesn’t really matter. Something is tapping and tapping and tapping away at his skull, and it’s a good few minutes before he’s able to discern that the tapping is actually coming from his bedroom window. Pulling aside the curtain results in the unfortunate side effect of Remus blinding himself, and the tapping increases in frequency.

“I know, you beautiful pest, calm down,” Remus groans, smoothly unlatching the window. As soon as he pushes the glass up, a small ball of feathers shoots into his bedroom, fluttering around his head. A letter drops to the floor as Remus feels two pounds of fluff land on his head.

“Algernon, I’m not tipping you for your coiffure services,” Remus says casually as he bends down to pick up the letter, careful not to disturb the owl in his ministrations. Some people might find it sad that a small owl is the only living thing besides the standard mites and bacterium to touch his hair in too many years to count; Remus is one of these people and tries not to think about it too much. The letter is, of course, from Beatrix. He didn’t expect her to reply so soon, and wonders if he did something wrong and she needs a rewrite, or if they’ve scrapped his stuff altogether.

_Remus,_

_I know that you’re a proper professor now, but if Dumbledore ever comes to his senses and gives you the boot, you’ll always have work with me. Half of the office is in love with you, and the witches are undeterred by my insistence that you’re horribly ugly and deformed. Come by at your own risk._

_This is my incredibly unprofessional way of thanking you for saving this week’s issue. Since Mr. Misslethorpe died and I took over, there’s been a lot of talk about replacing me with a more mature, “serious” editor. I think the board assumed I would be easily cowed into letting them do whatever they want due to my youth. They must’ve forgotten what old Gryffindor stood for. There is a very real chance that I still may be replaced, but the work you and the ladies have done is excellent. Our readers will respond, and the board cannot argue with increased sales. Would you consider taking over the advice column along with your regular editing work? Dorothea is still indefinitely indisposed. You’ll be fairly compensated, and if you find the editing work to be too much on top of teaching, I’d be more than willing to shift your editing duties to someone else if it means we can still get your advice each week._

_Take your time to think about it (say yes). I’m aware that teaching is your primary responsibility at the moment, and you should of course dedicate yourself to that most noblest of pursuits (say yes). You don’t actually look terrible and deformed and you are, in fact, a beautiful man with an even more beautiful soul (say yes)._

_Sincerely,_

_Ms. Beatrix Harlow_

Algernon is still playing with his hair. He hoots happily. In a daze, Remus walks to his desk and finds a piece of parchment unstained by coffee and tears, and takes just a couple of seconds before writing,

_Beatrix,_

_Yes._

_Sincerely,_

_Remus_

He folds the parchment up and holds it up to his hair, waiting until Algernon flutters up off of his head and grabs it.

“Take that to Beatrix, please,” Remus says, “and thank you for the styling job.”

Algernon hoots happily once more before zooming out of the window.

Remus Lupin is officially a complete and total disaster. He dreams about his former lover, despite the fact that said lover murdered his best friends in cold blood. He day-drinks. He writes an advice column for a women’s magazine. He wishes that he could say that if his parents or the Marauders were with him now, they’d be disappointed, but he knows for a fact that they would all just be delighted that he’d once loved, that he still felt, and that he’s taking opportunities. The ghosts which haunt him are unconditionally loving and he hates it, because there is presumably a reason why he is alive and they are not.

Disaster or no, he will be an educator in just a few days. It’s high time that he revisit his flashcards. He’ll run through the students first, then dangerous creatures, then spells, and create a new mixed stack from all of his sets of the ones which he needs to work on. Maybe he should brush up on the Terrowin Thorodan system too while he’s at it. It probably has not gotten any more comprehensible in the past few decades, seeing as it’s been the world’s most confusing library sorting system for at least four centuries, but it would be nice if he weren’t forced to bargain with Madam Pince every time he needed a text.

He can’t remember if it would be better for him to rest his voice or to practice his speech. It would be embarrassing if he over-rehearsed his lectures and showed up to his very first class hoarse, but it may be even worse to show up stuttering and unsure of himself. If he’s being honest, though, the latter isn’t really an issue. Remus has always been a bit of a smooth talker. Preparation can’t hurt, though, when done in moderation.

After four hours of running through his plans, he remembers that he needs to do laundry. It’s his least favorite chore.

It’s just another mundane task that proper wizards never spare a thought towards. Just another reminder that he doesn’t quite belong, the novelty of which has more or less worn away with time and loss. He mentally counts up his money and decides that his safety net is ineffectual enough to justify wasting it.

There’s a small record shop on the way to the launderette, and he has never once stepped foot inside of it. It would be a shame to move away without having ever indulged, he thinks. The walk to the launderette is miserable until he starts humming, realizing that he no longer needs to care what the neighbors think of him.

He might go a bit overboard. By the time he opens the door and hears the little bell jingle, he’s actually singing Dancing Queen out loud. There are two other patrons and no apparent employees on duty.

“Will I ever learn, I don’t know how…” he sings with a secret joy. He’s probably annoying the other patrons. He sees one of the patrons, an older man who wears his sport coat like a straitjacket, roll his eyes and heave out a sigh as though it pains him. Remus taps on the washer in tune with the song in retaliation. The man’s disapproval is almost enough to compel Remus to stay close by as his sweaters swish around in one machine and the rest of his clothes tumble in another, but he made a plan and wants to stick with it.

The record shop is the kind of place that Sirius would have loved. Remus would be lying if he claimed that this quality had absolutely nothing to do with his previous avoidance. It is almost uncanny how much the shop resembles Sirius- it draws him in and repels him in near-equal measure, wild and confusing in its organization, but in the kind of way which is clearly formulated to feel authentic. Hand-printed posters on colored paper advertise local bands, pubs, and clubs. Remus hovers at the bulletin board to read some of the band names. He’s rather fond of The Four Horsemen of the Rockpocalypse, Whitney Houston We Have a Problem, and WET (Women Eat and Talk). The Shag Police will evidently be performing their hit, “There’s Nothing Wrong With Making an Honest Living by Selling Illegal Drugs,” at a dodgy-sounding club a few towns over.

Remus is going to buy a record. The player in his apartment is old and scuffed in the most lovely way. It’s the only large item that he’ll be bringing to Hogwarts. It probably won’t work until he rips it apart a little bit and replaces some functional bits and bobs with magic, and he isn’t sure if he wants to do that. It belonged to his mother.

Though he knows that he may only have days to listen to it, he entered this shop to buy a record, and buy a record he will. Exploring the shop gives him a small thrill. There is a section dedicated to what the shop owners deem the greatest love songs of all time, tapes mixed with records mixed with CDs. Another section is dedicated to movie soundtracks of all genres. One section stands out- it’s full of the greatest hits to come out of Eurovision, and he is immediately drawn to ABBA and Celine Dion.

He is torn between Voulez-Vous and Super Trouper. In a fit of passion, he throws caution to the wind and chooses them both. He should probably be depressed that this is the most reckless action he’s taken in months or years, but he steadfastly ignores logical emotion in his determination to be happy.

The shopkeep is a young man, mildly scruffy and majorly fit, who looks Remus in the eye for an uncomfortably long period of time after glancing at his purchases.

“Buying for yourself or for someone special?” he asks, feigning nonchalance as he checks Remus out.

“Oh, for my own hedonistic pleasure,” Remus says seriously before chuckling and turning the shopkeep’s intense gaze back on him, “and anyone who makes themselves special, I suppose.”

“You live nearby?”

Remus raises an eyebrow with a mild smirk.

“I’ve noticed you looking in the windows. Never came in before, though, that I’ve seen.”

The records sit on the counter in a bag, transaction complete.

“Just admiring the view,” Remus says airily. “Supposed I should take a closer look before I left town for good. Do you own this place?”

“My father does, but he hasn’t come near the place in years, so I might as well.”

“Good for you,” Remus says, and takes the bag from the counter.

The man looks mildly put out as Remus turns away and heads towards the door.

Remus pushes the door open and delights in the rush of cool air.

“Well?” he says, holding it open.

Remus takes the man home. When he finally returns to the launderette, all of his clothes have been dumped out onto a counter and he doesn’t even mind. He whistles “Lay All Your Love On Me” as he separates the things that go into the dryer from the things he’ll take home and hang up.

It’s a good day.


End file.
